Last Monday night, at our monthly support group meeting, Nicola Beverley came to talk to us about makeup post cancer treatment – she runs Make Me Me, a voluntary, community based event created for women dealing with cancer or long term illness to spend an afternoon together being pampered. Watch her introductory video here. A number of the ladies had been on the Look Good Feel Better program but felt that perhaps they weren’t quite ready to take in all it had to offer as they were still in treatment and tired and feeling pretty wretched (though the information about scarves and wigs was universally appreciated!).

Nicola’s idea, while very similar, has a different time frame. The perfect example was Bernadette, who volunteered to be made up on the night. She’s about two years post diagnosis and is back at work full time, back to “business as usual”.

Nicola went through describing the products she uses, all as natural and chemical free as possible. Natural fibre application brushes. Natural cleansers. Then she applied makeup on Bernadette, explaining how to achieve the natural look easily. The most exciting part was towards the end when she showed us how to do eyebrows – not using a pencil but using a brush. The result was amazing and Bernadette was almost jumping up and down with excitement – “EYEBROWS, I HAVE EYEBROWS!!!”. It’s the little things that can sometimes make the biggest difference.

Here are some before, during and after photos for you …

Before

During

During

The products

The star!

End result

Nicola’s idea is to teach women how to do their make up post treatment in the relaxed environment of their own home – invite a few girlfriends round, open a bottle of wine, have some nibbles and learn about makeup. Sounds a lovely idea to me.